Deutsche Bank Comments On Concerns Over Consensus Estimates For AbbVie And Gilead Sciences

Deutsche Bank commented on AbbVie Inc ABBV and Gilead Sciences, Inc. GILD Wednesday and felt that consensus may be too high on both companies.

Analayst Robyn Karnauskas commented that "the key question we are getting from investors is if ABBV 2015 consensus is too high for HCV. We highlight that the consensus has come up a lot since we launched in Nov’14 from $1.5B to now at $2.7B for 2015. However, our calcs suggest that, the consensus could be high to the year by ~$700M.”

For Gilead, Karnauskas noted that the “focus in HCV is on 1) how big is the discount, 2) How big will Europe be in 2015 & 3) US patient volume in 2015. According to our calcs, if the company guides, the HCV guidance could be ~$1B lower than the consensus primarily driven by US.”

Despite the concerns over consensus estimates, the firm maintained Buy ratings on both stocks along with a $125 price target on Gilead Sciences and $80 price target on AbbVie.

AbbVie Inc closed at $62.70 Wednesday, down 1.18 percent.

Gilead Sciences, Inc. closed at $103.58 Wednesday, down 0.19 percent.